We have recently shifted our physical office to glorious Fitzroy, the coffee-swilling, street-art drenched, creative nerve centre of Melbourne. We’re in an off-Broadway lane with an excellent bakery right across the way. It definitely feels like an authentically Giant location.

Our offices have always reflected our non-mainstream sensibilities when it comes to workplace environment. Our first office was in South Melbourne, above Red Bears’ indoor children’s playground. This was at the rise of the dotcom boom, so a crazy era where emerging internet companies were super smug in inviting you to their venture capital funded offices for meetings where they would point out the beanbags, foosball table and free cereal for employees in the kitchen. We would smile politely, shake our heads at their lack of professionalism and then ask potential clients visiting our digs if they’d like to meet in Red Bears’ Space Adventure room or the Jungle Explorers room? And did they want sprinkles and a swirly straw with their hot chocolate?

A constant companion in Giant offices: the magnificent football art installation by Michael’s late brother, Neil.

Clearly, this dotcom life was unsustainable, for everybody, and even real world indoor children playhouses turned out to be on borrowed time. (A massive shopping centre now inhabits the old Red Bears site adjacent to the South Melbourne market.)

We shifted to a converted former ball bearing factory on Moray Street, South Melbourne, which had a lot of stairs and a great view of the city. When we landed afl.com.au, and had to dramatically expand our staff numbers, we made a bigger move, to Cremorne, where we took up residence inside an old Rosella factory – about as Melbourne as you can get.

A street where we lived. Renowned local street artist Tom Civil was nice enough to turn Walnut Street into a yellow brick road. (Fun game: spot Fly Dog in this picture)

In more recent times, we achieved our dream (well, okay, Nick Place’s dream) of having an office immediately next door to a great cafe, in Walnut Street, Cremorne, and now we’ve finally embraced our destiny and become full-time members of the Fitzroy hipster crowd.

It should also be mentioned that our new office is next to a major street art crew, which meant that when they did a major piece recently, another strange tradition continued for us, of streets where we set up somehow being painted so that boring grey bitumen is not part of our Giant world. Long may that continue. (Note to self: don’t have an office on the financial end of Collins Street.)

Talk to a Giant

A Giant never sleeps. Well, ok, we sleep. But, you know, when awake we're happy to talk to you about new work or existing content we're creating. If Nick's involved, there will probably be coffee. This is Fitzroy after all.

nick@mediagiants.com.au

Media Giants through the ages

1893: Our first e-content office. Unlike Yahoo and other tech start-ups, our original HQ had beanbags featuring actual beans. A full 76 years before the ARPAnet was invented. (Company founder Lance Melrose is second from the left)

1934: Deep in the Depression, workers on Media Giants’ production team were only fed wheat chaff and water, a tradition that continues to this day.

1957: Media Giants has always invested in state-of-the-art technology. This is our original prototype for a tablet computer, affectionately nicknamed the iGiant.

1968: As Australia’s leading content company, with an almost mystical reputation for hero-making and heroic performances, we sometimes can’t help but become the story. Other media are transfixed. Here, key staff pose for ‘Life’ magazine (company founder Lance Melrose is second from the left).

1973: The Australian multi-media landscape has always been volatile. Here, Media Giants founder Lance Melrose and a young Rupert Murdoch go toe-to-toe over who is better at social media engagement for a client’s audience.

1985: Giant staff pose proudly next to our first rocket, which carried Giant-1, our initial WAP content satellite into orbit. Media Giants has since become the first Australian content company to put a reporter in space and then on Mars; an achievement that was later adapted into a popular feature film starring Matt Damon.

1987: Unfortunately, Media Giants attracted international headlines for all the wrong reasons after company founder Lance Melrose became carried away while receiving a Walkley Award nomination for Best Online Coverage of a Victorian Election from starlet Sophia Loren. Of all the other international media magnates, only Donald Trump stood by our founder, saying he couldn’t see any problem with it.

1989: Media Giants operatives work hard but we party harder! Here, company founder Lance Melrose entertains the children of unnamed Giant workers at the company Christmas party.

1997: Another day, another client meeting. Giant directors Nick Place and Michael Roberts prepare for a routine catch-up with a Sydney real estate client.

2001: At Media Giants, we have a reputation for training and developing great media operators. Everybody is an individual at the Giants. (Company founder Lance Melrose is pictured, second from the left)

2003: During the infamous dot-com crash, Media Giants faced a difficult choice: fall back on our traditional media skills, producing magazines and offline content, or form a marachi band and tour South America. We chose the Baja option and the rest, as they say, is history. Our competitors fell in the dot-com carnage and we survived to fight another day. (Company founder Lance Melrose is pictured, second from left)

2004: An early, ill-fated attempt at creating a Giantmobile for our reporters to travel in. We were going to call it the “Tesla”, but en route to a press conference with Madonna accidentally obliterated two entire blocks of Manhattan, and shelved the project, leaving the plans for our electric-run Giantmobile with some kid called Musk or something. (Company founder Lance Melrose is pictured, driving, second seat from the left)

2004: Media Giants is forever on the cusp of the latest internet trends and technology. Pictured is an early Giant attempt at claiming the market edge when “kiosks” were set to become the future of online delivery at a street level. Tragically, several Giants were killed soon after, attempting to create an early “portal”.

2005: A dark day for our company as Fly Dog is arrested, following what is now only occasionally referred to as ‘the rubber chicken incident’.

2006: In the online news world, being first to a story can be everything. Here, Giant reporters race operatives from Sportal and News Ltd to a Jana Rawlinson presser at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

2008: Client publishing can be a risky business. Here, a Media Giant reporter working for Citysearch, a then-client, helps police with their enquiries during an Australian Fashion Week launch.